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My friends, I hope this note finds you well tonight, tomorrow morning, or whenever you open it — well, and relaxed from butt to ears after reading the above quote. I ran into the “unclench” quote a few weeks ago and have been remembering it and deliberately unclenching parts of my body whenever I do. I keep marveling at the tension I seem to unconsciously carry around in me. Doesn’t it feel good to let it go? What has most helped me unclench this month, though, is not deliberate muscle relaxation, but finally finding a way to once again do the work that does not feel like work to me. I’ve had a difficult time with the creative act of writing since this pandemic began since I’m not hanging out in public places like coffee shops, libraries, or anywhere else I’d go to escape this feeling that just seems to innately come with moving back in with one’s parents. After seven months, I finally figured it out: I wake up before the sun, bundle up in many layers of warm clothing, and carry a pen, notebook, laptop, and coffee to my hundred-year-old folding desk waiting on the backyard porch. I write as the sun rises, and as the sun rises, it gives rise to something in me. Attached to this letter are two articles written with a degree of fascination and heart I have not mustered for some time. I am happy, relieved, and my muscles are further unclenched by this. The first article you will find below is an attempt to make visible something very hard to see: the unique lens through which we each view the world. Composed of “culture, beliefs, values, awareness, and all sorts of other ingredients we each picked up in our past,” I believe this lens is one of the most powerful, overlooked aspects of the human experience and a literal, unsung fountain of free will. By recognizing that we each view the world through a lens composed of past experiences, and deliberately choosing certain experiences in the present, we can shape the lens through which we see the world in the future. Perhaps I’m just going crazy amid this pandemic and typing gibberish at sunrise in my parent’s backyard, but I feel this exploration of this invisible-something that lies between our eyes and interpretations is worthy of serious inspection. The second article is the reading list Joseph Campbell — one of the wisest, most influential minds of the twentieth century — assigned his Introduction to Mythology Class for thirty-eight years. The reading was not meant to be completed in a semester but across a lifetime. Joseph Campbell read books like nobody reads books, and books changed him, and he, in turn, changed the world. As he said in his infinitely-wise, posthumously-released PBS Interview Series The Power of Myth: “Sit in a room and read and read and read. And read the right books by the right people. Your mind is brought onto that level, and you have a nice, mild, slow-burning rapture all the time.”
These books were the right books in Joseph Campbell’s mind. To better shape my lens and follow in the footsteps of one of my greatest heroes, I intend to read most of them throughout my life. I invite you to join me. Til next month! With love and stoke, Ethan
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